Daily Archives: May 1, 2016

This year’s Annual Reunion Dinner was held in the Stamford Hall at School on Friday 29th April.
It was good to see the central table occupied by 12 members of the School staff – they will always be welcome.
Dr Kenneth Lea said ‘Grace’ and the meal commenced. Sodexo’s food and service proved to be well up to their usual high standard.
OAA Chairman Colin Bamford presented a cheque for £3,000 to Headmaster Tim Gartside. This was to help fund the purchase of more musical instruments, so that the current programme could be extended from Year 7 to Year 8.
Headmaster Tim Gartside gave a very interesting summary of events and developments at School since the last Dinner.
A Level results were particularly strong, and there were, as usual, outstanding achievements in sports and music.
Gordon Burns’s speech proved to be everything we’d hoped for, only more so.
He regaled us with anecdotes from the very beginning of the Krypton Factor, through to his interviews with Prime Ministers Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown.
The ‘Gotcha Oscar’ presented to him by Noel Edmonds after an elaborate hoax, was produced with pride!
The assembled diners showed their appreciation of Gordon’s presentation with a huge round of applause when he sat down. Steve Perrett most appropriately cried ‘Follow that’ before Colin could find the right words to thank the speaker. It said it all!
Christian James produced another bravura performance for the drawing of the raffle, and then the formal part of the evening was over, leaving people to chat in small groups or head for the bar.
It was noticeable that a lot of people wanted to talk to Gordon and have pictures taken with him. Delightfully, he had time for everyone. Ken Lea was on hand with Antony’s camera, and a lot of nice pictures resulted.